<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>It's True, I Was Made for You by fleetwoodcheese</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26205892">It's True, I Was Made for You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleetwoodcheese/pseuds/fleetwoodcheese'>fleetwoodcheese</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Til Eternity Passes Away [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(not really vomiting but talking about it), Artist Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, But before Quynh and Booker do whatever they're doing, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gambling, He makes a dad joke, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Immortality, Knives, M/M, Mention of Malta!!!, Mentions of Murder, Modern Era, Mostly Nicky being Nile's dad, Mostly from Nile's POV but not entirely, Nicky and Joe being Nile's dads, Nicky and Nile bonding over pizza, Non-Chronological, Once again featuring the authors lack of historical knowledge, Quynh Booker and Merrick are all mentioned, Set after the movie, Vomiting, barely a plot, but similar to the baklava bet not actual gambling, it's great, technically, this isn't about him</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:02:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,834</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26205892</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleetwoodcheese/pseuds/fleetwoodcheese</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Holy shit, Joe.” Andy finally says after what seems like far too long a pause. Both she and Nile are staring at Joe with an indescribable look in their eyes, somewhere between affection and shock with maybe a touch of heartbreak sprinkled in. “How come you never told me that story before?”</p><p>Or, Joe tells a story, Nicky gets groceries, Nile learns some history, and Andy rolls her eyes.</p><p>For this to make any sense, you have to read the first installment of the series! Sorry for the inconvenience!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andromache of Scythia &amp; Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani &amp; Nicky | Nicolo di Genova &amp; Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Til Eternity Passes Away [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>253</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It's True, I Was Made for You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Once again just wanna say that for this to make any sense, you have to read the first installment of the series! Sorry for the inconvenience! Huge thanks to everyone who read the last story! Especially Meg and rositalagata whose comments were so sweet that they almost made me cry!!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Holy shit, Joe.” Andy finally says after what seems like far too long a pause. Both she and Nile are staring at Joe with an indescribable look in their eyes, somewhere between affection and shock with maybe a touch of heartbreak sprinkled in. “How come you never told me that story before?”</p><p>“You never asked,” Joe shrugged, sipping his tea with still slightly watery eyes.</p><p>“Hold up, you’ve known each other for centuries and you never thought to ask the story of Joe and Nicky’s first kiss?” Nile scoffed, wiping a few stray tears from her eyes.</p><p>“I’d thought I’d heard all of Joe’s love-drunk stories about Nicky by now,” she smirked.</p><p>“Oh, believe me, as long as I am living, you will never hear the end of these stories,” Joe smiled. </p><p>That morning Joe had woken up to Nile reading at the kitchen counter and had immediately rushed to get his nearest sketchbook. Nile had rolled her eyes. She still wasn’t quite used to being ambushed into modeling for the world’s most practiced artist, but she couldn’t deny Joe, especially when he flashed the puppy dog eyes that had long since lost their effect on Andy and Booker. At some point that seemed like hours later, Nile was itching to move and had completely lost interest in her book on Napoleonic warfare (sorry, Book), when Nicky came into the room declaring in slow French (for Nile’s sake) that he was going out to get groceries, if anyone wanted to join him. The offer, she knew, was more for the sake of politeness than anything else. Nicky loved cooking, loved finding the best ingredients whenever they had a moment of calm; however, it only took one shopping trip with Nicky for Nile to realize that a man who has tasted the best and worst food throughout 9 centuries has very specific tastes that are not often found amongst the mass production of modern supermarkets. Nile could only listen to so much complaining about the embarrassment that is the Kroger pastry section.</p><p>“I’m alright, my heart,” Joe had responded in Italian, knowing the change in language would throw Nile off. She glared at him. </p><p>“You know I can stop posing for you if you want,” she responded in purposeful English. “Thanks, Nicky, but I’m planning on staying in today.” They had been at this safe house in the Smoky Mountains for a few weeks. After the ‘lay low’ period after the whole Merrick thing, Nicky and Joe thought spending some time a little closer to home might be good for Nile. Of course, really going back home was pretty much out of the question, but to be in a place where people spoke her own language was a surprisingly warm respite. </p><p>“Whatever you say, I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive without your guidance.” He winked at her quickly as he approached Joe where he was perched on the kitchen counter, leaving him with a quick kiss on the cheek and some short muttered Italian that Nile’s Duolingo level of Italian vocabulary could not pick up in the slightest. As Nicky locked the door behind him, Nile finally saw her exit from another 500 hours of no movement.</p><p>“Joe!” she said a bit too excitedly. “What was Nicky and your first kiss like?”</p><p>“Oh, don’t get him started,” Andy grumbled as she came in through the backdoor, coming from God knows where. </p><p>“What? I never tell this story!” Joe responded indignantly. </p><p>A few hours later Andy realized that he was right- he really never told this story. She had only heard Nicky’s version of this story which had apparently been heavily modified to only include the facts. Nicky was never a man who declared his feelings as openly as Joe, and he was always a bit wary about talking through his more vulnerable moments with anyone, even Andy, the only person besides Joe he trusts in the world. (Nile was getting there, but Booker was a painful reminder not to let his guard down to anyone.)  If there was one thing Andy had learned through the years she had spent trudging through her endless-seeming life, it was that the world sees kindness as weakness and that the most truly kind people on this planet always learn how to hide their weak points. Nicky’s weakness was Joe, of course, just as Quynh had been Andy’s. One day, she had found a beautifully crafted dagger tucked into Joe’s bag while she was helping them unpack from a trip to Malta. Nicky had told her of a quiet night at campsite when Joe stared into Nicky’s very soul with those sweet, sad eyes, and Nicky couldn’t stand it anymore and gave him the dagger as a “token of his affection” before they finally broke the tension that had racked Andy and Quynh’s nightmares for years. Apparently Nicky’s idea of a “token of affection” was very different than Andy’s. </p><p>“I can’t believe you kept track of that dagger after all these years,” Andy started. Joe raised an eyebrow at her.</p><p>“You've been going through my stuff, boss?”</p><p>“Wait, you still have it?!” Nile asked excitedly. Realizing that this probably wasn’t an appropriate reaction, she lowered her voice slightly.  “Can I see it?”</p><p>Joe sighed fondly. He wasn’t the only one with a mastery of the puppy dog eyes. As Joe got up to get the dagger from its hiding place in his and Nicky’s room, Nile and Andy began to hear soft Italian cursing and keys jangling by the front door. Andy rolled her eyes as she got up to help.</p><p>“5 bucks says he’s carrying every single bag, so he doesn't have to make a second trip,” Nile grinned. Her dad had done that same thing whenever he was back home.</p><p>“I’m definitely not taking that bet,” Andy smiled.</p><p>“Why not?” Nile pouted.</p><p>“Because I know for a fact that he’s doing exactly that,”  she glanced at her with smirking eyes and opened the door. Sure enough, there was Nicky with 6 bags under each arm and a couple more in each hand for good measure. </p><p>“Thanks, boss,” he said, fumbling to put his keys away even though Nile was 77% sure that that was physically impossible given his position. Andy took at least half of his bags and Nile got up to help put everything away.</p><p>“Nile, you are not going to believe what I found in the “international cuisine” section,” he paused his digging through the bags to use finger quotes here (which he used all the time after Nile explained them to him). He grinned as he pulled out not only a frozen pizza but a frozen ~Chicago-style~ pizza.</p><p>“Sacrilege!” Nile gasped overdramatically.</p><p>“Finally someone who understands me!” Nicky grinned at her. Andy rolled her eyes fondly, knowing that Nile had no actual qualms with frozen pizza (“I grew up on that shit, Andy.”), she just liked bonding with Nicky over their overly specific tastes in pizza. (“You haven’t tasted pizza until you’ve tasted the pizza at Labriola.” “No, you haven’t tasted pizza until you’ve tasted the pizza in 1889 Naples.” “That’s not fair.”)</p><p>“Ah, my heart, you wound me,” Joe interrupts returning from their room. “I understand perfectly that you have no taste for the simpler things in life. You forget how much of a godsend refrigerators are.”</p><p>“Oh, you’re just still bitter about Venice ‘54,” Nicky smirked as Joe made a fake retching sound as he came to stand beside him.</p><p>“What happened in ‘54?” Nile asked, now knowing never to assume what century they were talking about.</p><p>“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Andy sneered.</p><p>“Bad food poisoning,” Joe supplied. “Andy, Booker, and I were sick for days. Nicky was the only one with enough sense not to eat that damn cheese. Ah, I almost forgot, Nile,” he reached into his back pocket, pulling out the dagger. </p><p>“Ah, you finally decided to take me up on my offer, my love?” Nicky smiled that quiet, crooked smile. Joe tilted his head towards him seeming to answer his question through his eyes alone.</p><p>“You gonna let Nile see the knife or just ogle at your boyfriend?” Andy started. “I know,” she said before Joe interrupted her. “Not boyfriend.” </p><p>He glared at her half jokingly and handed Nile the knife. Even with Nile’s admittedly limited knowledge of daggers, it was a really pretty knife and remarkably well kept considering it was almost a thousand years old, although with the state of their swords that shouldn’t be too surprising. </p><p>“Where did you get it Nicky?” Nile said, handing the dagger to Andy, who admired the knife with a respect that Nile clearly did not have.</p><p>“You wouldn’t know him,” he smirked.</p><p>“Ha. Ha.” Nile glared at him as Joe laughed with his entire body.</p><p>“I don’t even remember. Some man in,” he made a face like he had forgotten where he put his keys, not forgotten something that happened 900 years ago. “1101? 1102 maybe?” Joe turned to him with a confused look.</p><p>“1102? We had barely stopped killing each other by then. You didn’t give it to me until at least a decade later, and I definitely would’ve noticed it if you had been using it for all that time,” Joe was clearly trying to get him to correct the date, but Nicky just nodded. </p><p>“I…” he paused for a second, clearly not having the words he wanted to explain this. “I wanted to say what I said then for a long time. I just… I knew you were not ready to forgive me yet- I was not who I needed to be for you to forgive me. I couldn’t ask you to forgive me when I was still the same man who hurt you,” he reached out his hand to hold Joe’s cheek. “I became a better man because of you, Joe. I became a better man because I couldn’t live with the thought that you would never forgive me.”</p><p>“Nicolo…” Joe looked at him like he was the only person who had ever existed. “Your kindness is more powerful than the tides, it is stronger than the very ground we stand upon, and it is more reliable than the passing of time itself. It would be arrogant of me to say I played any part in its creation.”</p><p>“You are far too humble, my love.” He smiled as he brought their lips together, Joe melting under the touch. Somehow after centuries of loving each other, with hundreds of years passed since they first touched each other, they still kissed like it was the very first time. They didn’t seem flustered like teenagers, desperately passionate like newlyweds, or even overly comfortable, as if there is nothing new left in each kiss, like some old married couples seem. They just seemed happy.</p><p>“I feel like we should leave- should we leave?” Nile whispered to Andy from the other side of the kitchen.</p><p>“Probably,” she grinned.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The title is from "The Story" by Brandi Carlile, which is low key a very Joe and Nicky song. (Also the series title is from Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle")</p><p>Nile: Why is everyone staring at me?<br/>Joe, heart exploding: You just called Nicky dad! You said ‘Thanks, dad!’<br/>Nile: What? No I didn’t- I said ‘Thanks, man.’<br/>Nicky: Do you see me as a father figure, Nile?<br/>Nile: No, if anything I see you as a bother figure cause you’re always bothering me.<br/>Andy: Hey, show your father some respect!<br/>(If you can't tell how much I love Nile's relationship with Nicky and Joe!)</p><p>I know nothing about daggers, history, or food poisoning! Here's the Chicago pizza place that's apparently very good according to some random person's blog: https://www.labriolacafe.com/ </p><p>My sincerest apologies to Kroger for dissing their pastry section lololol</p><p>Nile vs. Joe puppy dog eye competition, who would win? My vote is for Nile, sorry Joe! (Bonus: Andy says Nile, Nicky obviously says Joe, Copley is called in to break the tie thus Joe wins because Copley is scared that Joe will literally kill him if he doesn't vote for him) (Bonus bonus: Quynh wouldn't be able to decide, Booker would vote for his flask)</p><p>I would die to see Nicky with 50 billion shopping bags like "I am 951 years old, I will not be vanquished by my own groceries."</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>